A Pearl of the Gospel

"Husbands, love your wives like Christ loves the Church.."

(Ephesian 5:22)

There are some passages that I call the Pearls of the Gospel because their deep truths are often seen when you consider the Scripture from a different angle.  For example, husbands are commanded to love their wives like Christ loves the church.  When we consider the Scriptures from a law-based premise, we look at this as a command and do our best to fulfill it. Basically, the surface truth is men must die to themselves in order to truly love their wives.  We know that love is an action word here and not a feeling; however, I do not believe we are commanded to love our wives in a cold, distant, stoic manner which is the way many view God’s love for us.  Moreover, I do not believe God is telling us to love our wives based on their performance or their ability to meet our expectations.  We may say, “Of course not,” and yet, if we are not really convinced, aware and “tapped-in” to the nature of God’s love for us, we will never be able to love our wives like Christ.  I love my wife, and often that involves feelings; however, when she is not meeting my expectations, or quite frankly, when she makes me mad, I know that I can still love her in my actions beginning with complete forgiveness.  Knowing Christ and His gospel has allowed me to love my wife passionately, creatively and wildly.  My relationship with Carrie-Ann has helped me answer one of my adolescent questions posed by Springsteen’s “Born to Run” “I want to know if love is wild, I want to know if love is real.” It is both, but Carrie and I both know that it would not be if it were not for our Savior and Match-Maker, Jesus Christ.  When things get sticky between us, we always ask ourselves two questions. One, did God put us together? Two, are we going to honor that?  Through His marvelous gift of forgiveness and His empowering Spirit-Union, we are able to overcome and love each other passionately and completely. I fall in love with my darling over and over again. Without Jesus Christ, I am a scared, weak little man who would have lost Carrie long ago.  But, In Christ, I am bold as the Lion of Judah and can love her with an undying, passionate untamed love.   

     

Now, the hidden pearl is that this is only a small reflection of how God loves us.  He loves us passionately, creatively, and wildly.  He commands husbands to love their wives like Christ, so it only makes sense that God does not love us with a stoic, distant cool love.  He loves us intimately and desires a robust, intimate relationship with us.  His love is radical, unending, constant and close. His love is initiating and caused Him to journey light-years across the universe from eternity into time and space to fight for us—to fight and win our love. Bold, wild, untamed and unconditional is the love of Christ.